


Five Delsons

by YellowMagicalGirl



Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons)
Genre: Akiridion Biology (Tales of Arcadia), Akiridions Lay Eggs (Tales of Arcadia), Alien Biology, Angst, Brother-Sister Relationships, Death from Old Age, Death of sibling, Gaylen!Krel (Tales of Arcadia), Gaylen's Core (Tales of Arcadia), Gen, Immortality, Krel Merges with Gaylen's Core (Tales of Arcadia), No beta we die like Buster, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 09:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30053652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowMagicalGirl/pseuds/YellowMagicalGirl
Summary: Aja hatched five delsons before Krel did.
Relationships: Aja Tarron & Krel Tarron
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Five Delsons

**Author's Note:**

> In the hands of another writer, I feel like "Akiridions lay eggs" would be a headcanon that gets turned into either a smut fic, kidfic, or crack fic. But in my hands, it is angst.

“We’re going to go hunting for skeltegs.” Krel looked up from the gravetic plasma disk he was deconstructing to his sister. Her upper hands were on her hips, and her lower arms were crossed. It was like she thought that doing so made her seem intimidating.

Krel went back to working on the disk. “No, we’re not.”

“Yes, we are.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Well, I’m in charge, and I say we are.”

“You’re not in charge; _Zadra_ is.”

 _“Zadra’s_ talking to Loth Saborian, so in her stead I’m in charge because I’m older.”

“We’re _twins,_ Aja, you can’t claim you’re in charge due to age!”

“I hatched five delsons before you did, so I have five delsons more experience than you. Thus, I’m in charge!”

“Yeah, and I bet you’ll die five delsons before I do as well!”

Anger flashed in his sister’s eyes, and at first Krel thought she was going to hit him. Which would hurt, but no matter what Aja would get in trouble with Zadra for hitting him (and maybe even being bossy), even if Krel got in trouble as well for being mean to her.

Instead of hitting Krel, Aja’s face screwed up. “Zadra!” she yelled. “Krel’s being mean to me! He said I’m gonna die!”

Oh, no. Now Krel was going to be grounded.

* * *

Aja was a regal queen, nine feet tall with an elegant crest.

Krel, on the other hand, still looked very young. He didn’t notice it, most of the time, not when he was with his friends on Earth. He had made upgrades to his transduction so he’d appear to age with them, since Akiridions aged more slowly than humans. Kleb, they aged just a little more slowly than trolls did. But around other Akiridions, like the one who had never been much older than him in a way that mattered? It was impossible to really ignore, not when she towered over him when they were both in their Akiridion forms just like she had when he had changed into his human form as she prepared to take upon the mantle of queen. He had tried to ignore this, of course, just like how he had tried to ignore his fangs before he finally went to Jim for help with adjusting.

At least Jim, despite becoming a taller being with tusks and invulnerable stone skin, still aged like a human did, if perhaps a little slower.

“I’m not aging, am I?” Krel asked, voicing the thought that neither of them had wanted to verbalize.

“It doesn’t look like it,” Aja said. She wrapped one pair of arms around herself before wrapping the other pair around him. He let himself cry into her chest as she unwrapped an arm from around herself and stroked his hair. He was pretty sure she was crying as well.

Eventually, Aja pulled away. “Well, you’ll always be my _little_ brother.”

She’d said something similar to him, years ago, when he told her what he’d done. That he’d merged with Gaylen’s core, because perhaps the only thing that could stop Earth’s demigods once and for all was the power of an Akiridion god. But years ago, she hadn’t sounded so teasing.

“Ha ha, very funny Aja. It’s not like I can go back in time and ensure that I hatch before you.”

“Oh, no. I wasn’t even talking about that. I mean, you’re always going to be short.”

He refused to childishly stick his tongue out at her. That would be letting her win.

* * *

Aja had been a warrior queen, but despite all the battles she had fought it was simple old age that had taken her. Her core was too frail to support itself, and she died in her sleep, surrounded by family. Most hadn’t been awake at the time; it had been before dawn. Krel had been awake, holding one of her hands in his own while he softly tinkered using the other three. Her funeral was the delson afterwards, and Krel was proud of himself that he managed to make it three quarters of the way through his speech for his sister before he started crying.

It was selfish, but some of those tears were for himself. His sister had died, older than either of their parents had ever become. And here he was, still looking only four months older than he had been when their parents had died. He will die looking incredibly youthful for a geezer. Or maybe his appearance will catch up to his age in his final moments before his body dissolves and leaves nothing behind but two cores, one old and broken and the other divine and unbreakable. Sure, nothing could kill Gaylen or those who had merged with his core, nothing but Seklos’s canon, but this was _fate._ It was something that had bound Aja and Krel together since he had hatched.

Aja had died, and it was still technically five delsons after her death. Unlike Aja, Krel would die alone. He had no descendants, and nearly all of his friends had died hundereds of keltons ago. It was fine. He had realized this would happen soon after he learned just how short and fleeting human lives were. He hadn’t been prepared when his human friends started dying of complications of old age, complications that they hadn’t thought they’d live to back in high school. He hadn’t been prepared for Aja’s death. But Krel was prepared for his own. He supposed he had been prepared for it his entire life.

The skyline of Akiridion-V had changed since his childhood. Earth may have been his home, but this planet was where he had been born. It was only fitting that he would die here, five delsons after Aja had died. Well, five delsons and twenty horvaths. Which, if he rounded to the nearest delson, was six delsons, but he refused to round.

The mekrons ticked on. No one had said dying was such a slow process. That was probably why Krel was so afraid - if death was quick, then he wouldn’t be so afraid. He wanted to do more with his hands than sit still and wait for death, but he had finished the project he’d been working on when his sister died. He didn’t need to start something he would never be able to finish, not when he would be dying so soon.

And yet, a new delson dawned on Akiridion-V. A mournful wail broke the quiet as Krel realized that it had been six delsons since his sister had died. He had lived an entire delson longer than she had, and he was likely to live many more.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

**Author's Note:**

> Gravetic plasma disks are entirely the invention of Springhole.net’s Technobabble Malfunction Generator; I have no idea what they’re supposed to do and it’s not plot important. If someone were to make a helpful list of Akiridion technology I would much appreciate it for future use in writing.
> 
> So, basically, I headcanon that Akiridions hatch from eggs, though they do so by punching/kicking their way out as opposed to having egg teeth. They lay eggs in clutches of usually one to three, though up to five eggs at a time has been recorded (though it did cause strain to the parent and the eggs were small and malnourished). Akiridions hatch anywhere from half a horvath to eleven delsons after the clutch has been laid. It’s common for twins and triplets to be at least a delson or two apart when it comes to hatch time, and the moment of their birth is recorded as when they hatch as opposed to when their own individual egg is laid. Thus, it’s entirely possible that Krel’s egg may or may not have been laid before Aja’s, but she took a lot less time punching/kicking her way out and therefore she would have been considered the older twin, and thus would have lorded over the fact that she was five delsons older than her brother for her entire life.


End file.
